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At least 12 alleged cartel members were killed by the Mexican army in a shootout near the border with the United States, according to officials.
The soldiers were on patrol in the municipality of Miguel Aleman, along the Texas border, when they were attacked by ‘armed civilians hiding in the bush,’ Tamaulipas state’s security agency said in a statement published on X.
The agency did not respond to questions about whether any soldiers were killed or injured in the Sunday shootout. The gunmen who attacked the soldiers were alleged members of a drug cartel, AFP reported.
Officials said they seized 12 long weapons, cartridges and magazines of various calibers.
The state of Tamaulipas has various organized crime groups, whose main activities include human smuggling and drug trafficking, authorities say.
The army reportedly used drones and a helicopter in the operation. No additional information has been released, and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack as of Monday.
Last September a gang of armed men attacked a convoy of vehicles that were crossing to Roma, Texas, from Miguel Aleman, injuring three people, including Americans.
The State Department issued a Do Not Travel alert for Tamaulipas last year. Last month Mexican marines detained one of the top leaders of the Gulf drug cartel, the gang that kidnapped four Americans and killed two of them in March 2023.
The four Americans crossed into the border city of Matamoros from Texas so that one of them could have cosmetic surgery. They were fired on in downtown Matamoros and then loaded into a pickup truck.
Americans Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard died in the attack; Eric Williams and Latavia McGee survived. Most of them had grown up together in the small town of Lake City, South Carolina. A Mexican woman, Areli Pablo Servando, 33, was also killed, apparently by a stray bullet.
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